A New Chapter, I’m Going Green with Veeam!

I am happy to inform everyone that I have accepted a position with Veeam Software! Later this month, I will start with Veeam as a Product Strategy Specialist reporting to Doug Hazelman. I will have the proverbial dotted-line reporting structure to Zorian Rotenberg at Veeam also. You may recognize Zorian as the former CEO of StarWind Software. Zorian is a Vice President of Veeam, in charge of special projects and Doug is the Senior Director of Product Strategy at Veeam.

As you can see, this is a great opportunity to me and I am very excited.

This comes at a time when we see many IT personalities gravitating to the technology companies. And for me, this is an opportunity to come back full circle in a way. As it was, in my career thus far, I was most comfortable in my role when I worked for the software division in the supply chain / material handling industry. It doesn’t sound very exciting, but there is one very transportable sensation: When you hook up software and a solution that you and your team made and it just works, that is a very rewarding feeling. While this supply chain software isn’t exactly as mainstream as virtualization management and protection tools, there is a red thread connecting these experiences.

I see this opportunity with Veeam bringing that right back to me. I’m going to work for a mainstream technology company, how cool is that! I’m going to get down into tech details with products that people use every day and depend on.

With every job change, there is impact in other areas. In the case of Rickatron proper, there are a number of areas where this will impact the Rick that you all have come to know. Here are a few Q&A’s about how this new role:

Question: What does a Product Strategy Specialist actually do?

Answer: Stuff. I will focus on working to create a lot of various materials for Veeam on their products. As I understand it now, this will be very visible content to the public. Some of it is in the hush-hush for now category, but don’t worry I’ll make all the requisite noise when we can.

Here’s a funny side note about the process I’ve gone through thus far… Part of this role may include online products that will go out to customers in a number of different ways. If I were to be in a video or or something, my first reaction to this was, “I wouldn’t be good for this. I’m a dud personality and I don’t have good hair.” I’m serious, that’s what I said.

I can’t exactly give details on what the role will do, as they are in line with some “STUFF” that Veeam is working on and I’m not really in the right situation to discuss it yet. But, no worries; I’ll be babbling all over the place soon enough.

Question: How will this affect your blogging practice?

Answer: Significantly. I will channel my commercial blogging content to a single website, TechRepublic. This is going to be due to transparency requirements, my own availability, parameters of my new role and most importantly my swagger to continue to blog. I may put some more original content here on the Rickatron blog, but who knows. I will need to do a complete overhaul of my blogger disclosure, however.

Answer: Maybe. This critical decision depends on if I’m going to be able to keep a refrigerator close to my workspace. The cans are marginally more economical, but I like Coke Zero in a can best if it has been chilled for more than two hours. I’ve come to be quite familiar with the Diet Mountain Dew bottles, however. We’ll see how this changes my hydration strategy.

Question: Rick: I can’t keep up with where you have been working over the years. What is going on with your career?

Answer: I’m being indecisive. Much to my own irritation, I have changed jobs more times in the last 3 years than I would care to admit. This is due to me seeking more and more challenges, responsibilities and opportunities to utilize my abilities.

People have to do what they like to do. I ask myself questions like: What challenges me? What are you wired to do? How do I keep myself close to where my passions are? My passion is the technology. I have to keep myself near it.

Question: How will this impact the Virtumania podcast?

Answer: We are not sure yet. Rich Brambley is thinking about what we will do with the podcast. I love doing it, and we all have been really busy of late – hence the total drop off in content. But, there will be some form of update soon regarding this.

Question: You live in Columbus, and Veeam is headquartered there. Is there something fishy going on?

Answer: No. I’ve not had any communication with Veeam that would be different than any other prospective employer. Ironically, I’ve only covered Veeam products minimally in my blogging practice thus far. As a blogger, I did have a meeting over a meal with them – which has been listed on my blogging disclosure.

Taking this new position with Veeam will be a big step for me. I’m excited, humbled, confident, scared, unclear, and probably some more sensations all at once. I’ll keep updates on Twitter on how it goes, but more than anything I’m very excited to go to Veeam and join the fan favorite software at every VMworld I’ve been at.

Until then, I’m heads down on the holidays and transitions. Ciao for now!